


Three Nightmares, One Constant

by elfgirl931



Series: Sanar Shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1811680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfgirl931/pseuds/elfgirl931
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times that Kaidan Alenko has nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After Eden Prime

      Kaidan Alenko was not a man prone to nightmares. But after what he’d seen on Eden Prime, he figured he’d have to be crazy _not_ to feel a little messed up. Just thinking about those spikes set in the ground (dragon’s teeth, the crew was starting to call them) and the people lying impaled on them was enough to turn his stomach. Not to mention his stupid mistake at the beacon… Commander Shepard had told him not to worry about it, that she was perfectly fine, but he still had his mind fixed on it as he prepared for bed in the crew quarters. He didn’t know if he could shake today off in a hurry.

      Sure enough, the minute he close his eyes in sleep, Kaidan was back on Eden Prime. Some part of him knew that it was a dream, but he couldn’t force himself awake the way he usually did. He drifted in and out, not quite resting but not quite awake, surrounded by Geth and seeing the Commander lifted into the air by the beacon over and over again. When he started to see his family members impaled on the dragon’s teeth, he finally shook himself awake, covered in sweat and feeling like a wrung-out rag.

      He knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep for a while, so he quietly pulled on his boots and BDU’s and walked quietly past his sleeping crewmates. Even though the _Normandy_ was in the middle of a sleep cycle, Kaidan didn’t want to run the small risk of someone seeing him out of uniform. At first, the rec table looked empty, but when his eyes adjusted to the gloomy orange light, he saw someone sitting there.

      His heart did an odd drop into his stomach when he saw that it was Commander Shepard. She hadn’t noticed him yet, and he took in the sight of her off guard - vastly different from the way she looked in the CIC, or on the battlefield. There, she was all energy and focus and raw power. Here, she just looked tired. She leaned her cheek into one hand, the other listlessly swiping the screen of a datapad. An empty styrofoam cup sat next to her, next to an untouched energy bar.

      She looked up slowly, not registering his presence at first, but when her eyes locked onto him, she sat up quickly, subtly adopting the presence of an officer. “Hey, Alenko. Surprised to see you up.”

      “I could say the same, ma’am.”

      Her shoulders dropped ever so slightly. “I couldn’t sleep. My cycle’s all messed up from being knocked out, and… I don’t know. Still can’t stop thinking about Jenkins.”

      Kaidan got his water and then sat down across from her. “I’m kind of the same. What the Geth did to those colonists is… really sticking with me.” He drew circles on the table with his finger, trying not to let the images crowd back into his brain.

      “Yeah. Today was messed up in a lot of ways,” she sighed. “But hey, someone told me today not to beat myself up over what happened, and I’d like to remind him of the same thing.”

      He looked back up at her to see a quiet smile on her face. His heart did that funny drop again, and he hurriedly said goodnight. When he slipped back into bed and drifted back to sleep, he kept that smile in his head instead of Eden Prime.


	2. After Alchera, Before Horizon

      The first year, Kaidan has the same dream almost every night. The therapists assure him that it will stop happening in time, that he’s gone through a lot of trauma and the process of mental healing can be slow.

      Sometimes he wonders if he wants it to stop. The nightmare is the only way he can see her. He hates himself for even having the thought.

      After a year and a half, it stops happening quite as frequently. He stops dreading going to sleep, and slowly he’s able to have normal dreams once in a while, but most of the time he slips into a dreamless coma at night. He’s thrown himself into his work, and slowly is struggling towards normalcy, if not happiness.

      The nightmare comes back again almost two years to the day that the _Normandy_ went down. He knows it by heart and lets it swallow him.

       The red lights are flashing, all confusion and noise of people running and pushing past him to the escape pods, all moving at a blurred speed but he can only run in slow motion. _I have to find Shepard_. She’s standing there, and she hasn’t put her helmet on and her reddish hair is practically glowing in the emergency lights, and those green eyes are nothing but a white sheen, reflecting the burning of the ship that’s going down.

      She shoves him in an escape pod and it blasts off on its own. He sees the yellow beam break the ship apart, and as he’s racing towards Alchera in his pod, beating his fists against the porthole and screaming himself hoarse, he can see Sanar go spinning into space. He’s tried to rationalize it over and over again, there’s no way he really could have seen her on that terrible day. It was too far away, too many explosions and debris flying everywhere for him to see one woman suspended in zero gravity.

       The nightmare shows it to him anyway, in loving and excruciating detail. Every rip in her suit, the way she clutches her throat. The way her arms and legs flail desperately for purchase. He can hear her gasping and trying to scream but there is no sound in space.

     Kaidan wakes up suddenly, clutching at his own throat. After a quick glance around the little bunkhouse, he’s glad to see that he hasn’t woken anyone up by screaming this time. He sits up and his t-shirt is plastered to his back with sweat. He pulls it off and throws it to the floor.

      _Why now_? It’s been two years. In outward appearances, he’s moving on - advancing his career and even going on a few dates. The dream won’t let him go, or he can’t let it go. He’s not sure which one is worse.

       The bedside clock reads 4:23 A.M. It’s a little early to be getting up, even on a backwater farming community like Horizon, but Kaidan doesn’t want to try sleeping again. The locals are still getting used to him, but he figures he can go out by himself to get set on calibrating the new GARDIAN lasers on the outskirts. Nothing exciting will probably happen today, but it can’t hurt to get an early start.


	3. During the War

      Kaidan woke up with his heart pounding its way out of his chest. He sat up and looked around wildly, putting his hand on the spot where Sanar was supposed to be sleeping next to him. The clock read 3 am, but she wasn’t there.

      “Shepard?” he called, hating how his voice shook a little.

      She stepped out of the bathroom, yawning and stretching and _alive_. “Hey. Had to -” she stopped when she saw the stricken look on Kaidan’s face. “What’s wrong?”

      “Bad dream,” he mumbled, rubbing his burning eyes with both hands. She was there immediately, climbing to his lap and laying a kiss on his bare shoulder. Her fingers threaded in his hair, stroking his scalp gently the way he loved. His arms went around her and he rested his head on her shoulder, breathing the clean cotton scent of her hair and feeling her breath on his neck.

       After a time, Sanar turned her head to kiss his ear. “Tell me what you dreamed.”

      “Shepard - “

      “It’ll help,” she insisted. “You need to let it out. You were as white as a ghost when I came out of the bathroom.” She pulled away from him a little bit to study his face. “Was it Alchera again?”

       Kaidan could hardly look her in the eye - just thinking about it hurt so much. “No. I hardly get that one anymore.”

      “Then what?”

      “You died. We were trying to clear a base, and we got separated. Cerberus soldiers shot you down and I couldn’t stop them. I woke up and you were gone.” He exhaled shakily. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

      “No it doesn’t.” Sanar placed another kiss on his shoulder and resumed stroking his hair. “I have dreams like that all the time. I relive Mars a lot. It’s just part of our job description.” She climbed off of his lap and back under the covers, patting the spot next to her. Kaidan slid down and she immediately pillowed her head on his chest and started stroking it with her fingertips.

      “I can’t promise that I’m not going anywhere, Kaidan. Anything could happen in this war, we both know that.  But as long as I’m alive, I’ll be right next to you.” She was quiet for a while and he wondered if she’d fallen asleep, but then she slapped his chest lightly. “I’d think you could trust me to take care of myself against Cerberus soldiers, though,” she added with a laugh.

      Kaidan couldn’t help laughing a little too and pulled her closer. “Ok, next time I have a bad dream I’ll try to think of more formidable enemy for you.”

       “Deal,” she murmured, her eyes finally closing. Kaidan wasn’t far behind her, and this time his dreams were blessedly quiet.


End file.
